Page 1 of Peaches

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“It doesn’t haveto be a bestseller. It doesn’t have to be something new no one’s ever read, or hell, have a twist the world would never see coming. It just has to come from the heart! Why am I making this sodamndifficult?” I whisper aloud to myself, as my head rolls back simultaneously with my eyes, and I let out a heavy sigh.

The sounds of the coffee shop meld together in the background and make me think I should’ve stayed home where it was quiet. Where there weren’t any distractions, so I could think, focus, and maybe somehow get it right.

That’s what they say, you know?

It doesn’t matter.

Let it come from the heart.

That’s what almost every reader, editor, publisher and personal assistant will tell you when you’ve been stumped as long as I have. Writer’s block is one heavy bitch, let me tell you. It’s a weight hanging over my head each and every day. A constant reminder that I feel like I’ve lost my edge. That I’ve fallen out of touch. Like a light switch has been flicked off just as I feared it always would be.

When’s the next book coming out?

I thought you were writing about that one story next, what did you say it was? What happened to that?

Whatever you write, it will be great, I just know it.

But what’s more, you have to believe it yourself, and you just have to write!

Ugh. I know! I promise, on my stumped brains writer’s block of a stupid head, I know that! Ifeelit! But somehow, I can’t escape a tiny little fact that sits in my subconscious, blinding me with the piercing thought that it may be right. The one sitting strategically in the way of my next story idea that screams loudest of them all…I have no words left.

And what’s even more…

Who’s to say they matter if I do?

One more sigh. One more roll of my eyes as my head cracks from side to side.

You got this!

My self-mantra attempts to echo through my mind.

You know you do!

Besides, my readers won’t be the only one wanting to crucify me if I never give them another story to read. My editor. My publisher. My personal assistant. Holy hell, I can hear them now.

You have to stay relevant!

You have to keep up and compete with the other authors in your genre.

Romance is the most competitive market there is.

If you go cold, if you waste too much time between releases, you’ll lose it all.

And don’t I know it!

Truer words were never spoken given the way I’ve been seeing it all slowly slip through my fingers in my absence this last year. A fact that’s made me take an even harder look at myself and ask that one question I never thought I would.

Do I even care?

The longer I’ve sat with that question, the easier it is to answer. I could never stop caring about my dream. My craft. My reason for breathing. After all, that’s why I do it to begin with. I’m a writer! Even if my books never make it on any bestseller lists, or if they never win any awards, if my reviews are mixed equally between those that hate it and those who love it. I have to remember why I started in the first place.

For me. To justwrite.

I’m an author after all, aren’t I?

All I have to do is make it come from the heart.

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